Monday marked a day of dueling congressional endorsements aimed at appealing to core party constituencies in the Democratic governor's contest, as J.B. Pritzker picked up the backing of Rep. Luis Gutierrez and Chris Kennedy got the support of Rep. Bobby Rush.

Beyond the appeals to Latino and African-American voters the endorsements represented, each congressman followed a theme central to the campaign of the candidate they endorsed.

Gutierrez and his support of increasing legal immigration played into Pritzker's repeated attempts to try to link President Donald Trump to Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner.

Rush and his work on civil rights invoked the legacy of the Kennedy family as well as gun violence, an issue plaguing the black community.

Speaking at a near Southwest Side church in Pilsen in English and Spanish, Gutierrez called Trump a "con artist, just like the governor of the state of Illinois."

"'Make America Great Again,' our president says. 'Make America Great Again?' An America in which women are in the kitchen, gay people are in the closet, black people are on the back of the bus and Latinos and immigrants were just silent and quiet? That's the America he wants to take us back to," said Gutierrez, a 24-year member of Congress.

"If we're going to be triumphant, you want to win, you want to beat Rauner, who is nothing but a sidekick of Trump," the congressman said. Later, Gutierrez, a member of the House Judiciary Committee, told reporters that the panel should begin impeachment proceedings against the president for obstruction of justice in the probe of alleged collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia in the 2016 election.

Pritzker said he was "proud" to accept the endorsement of Gutierrez, whom he called "one of the fiercest fighters of the nation ... to beat Donald Trump, to beat Bruce Rauner."

Rauner and Trump "have the same agenda and the same governing style: attack, blame, deny and divide," Pritzker said. "I'm running for governor to unite Illinois and to get things done for this state."

In the South Side Chatham neighborhood, Kennedy accepted Rush's endorsement at a local restaurant, noting that in the congressman's tenure of 24 years, Rush served with Kennedy's late uncle Sen. Ted Kennedy, brother Rep. Joe Kennedy, cousin Rep. Patrick Kennedy, and nephew Rep. Joe Kennedy III.

"I know Chris Kennedy," Rush said. "I know the DNA that makes up a Kennedy. As he indicated, I served with four Kennedys in the Congress, and one thing you can say about all of them — they have the same character and they have the same consciousness. They believe and they work for those who are left out, those who are denied access to the American dream."

Rush said when Kennedy speaks about gun violence and "the problem of the pain of families that violence has visited upon (them), he doesn't just speak from talking points. He speaks from his own family experience." Chris Kennedy is the son of the late U.S. Sen. Robert Kennedy and nephew of President John F. Kennedy, both of whom were slain by assassins.

Kennedy is counting on a strong showing in the black community, given his family history on civil rights issues. But Kennedy also has disdained endorsements Pritzker has received from African-American aldermen, saying in the past that the contest "is not about politicians endorsing other politicians or what might be happening behind closed doors."

On Monday, Kennedy sought to differentiate Rush's backing as coming from a leader who "supports a candidate who will look after all of us" in contrast to "the insiders and the establishment that (has) the party leadership cramming down a choice on everybody else."

Rush also lashed out at some elements of the Democratic Party, though not by name, for trying to engineer an early endorsement of Pritzker, a billionaire entrepreneur and investor who has vowed to self-finance his campaign and go toe-to-toe with the wealthy Rauner.

"I will not be a party to, nor support, the shenanigans of the Democratic establishment here in Illinois. They want to package with ribbons (and) deliver a gift of the nomination to their choice," Rush said. "My message to them is that you can't gift-wrap the gubernatorial nomination because it's not yours to give. It belongs to the citizens of the ... state of Illinois."

Rush has had a history of being an outspoken critic of power. He defeated a young Barack Obama in 2000 to win re-election to Congress, endorsed an Obama rival for U.S. Senate in Illinois in 2004 and has never been close to the now former president.

But even as he disdained the Democratic establishment, Rush last year was aided by some of Mayor Rahm Emanuel's closest political backers in fending off a Democratic primary challenge to his re-election.

Meanwhile, Rauner wasn't out in public Monday and canceled a scheduled appearance at an Illinois Republican Party fundraiser in Rosemont with the seven GOP members of the state's congressional delegation. The Rauner campaign said the governor was in Springfield ahead of the upcoming special session.